College students hostile to, ignorant of free speech

Catherine Rampell, Washington Post Writers Group

Published
4:52 pm CDT, Wednesday, September 20, 2017

A heated discussion, one of several at the University of California, Berkeley campus on Sep. 14, as the Berkeley College Republicans host Ben Shapiro, the latest in a line of conservative speakers to roil the flagship campus. A recent survey indicates an astonishing lack of respect for free speech on college campuses. less

A heated discussion, one of several at the University of California, Berkeley campus on Sep. 14, as the Berkeley College Republicans host Ben Shapiro, the latest in a line of conservative speakers to roil the ... more

Photo: JIM WILSON /NYT

Photo: JIM WILSON /NYT

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A heated discussion, one of several at the University of California, Berkeley campus on Sep. 14, as the Berkeley College Republicans host Ben Shapiro, the latest in a line of conservative speakers to roil the flagship campus. A recent survey indicates an astonishing lack of respect for free speech on college campuses. less

A heated discussion, one of several at the University of California, Berkeley campus on Sep. 14, as the Berkeley College Republicans host Ben Shapiro, the latest in a line of conservative speakers to roil the ... more

Photo: JIM WILSON /NYT

College students hostile to, ignorant of free speech

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Here’s the problem with suggesting that upsetting speech warrants “safe spaces,” or otherwise conflating mere words with physical assault: If speech is violence, then violence becomes a justifiable response to speech.

Just ask college students. A fifth of undergrads now say it’s acceptable to use physical force to silence a speaker who makes “offensive and hurtful statements.”

That’s one finding from a disturbing new survey of students conducted by John Villasenor, a Brookings Institution senior fellow and University of California at Los Angeles professor.

In August, motivated by concerns about the “narrowing window of permissible topics” for discussion on campuses, Villasenor conducted a nationwide survey of 1,500 undergraduate students at four-year colleges. Financial support for the survey was provided by the Charles Koch Foundation, which Villasenor said had no involvement in designing, administering or analyzing the questionnaire; as of this writing, the foundation had not seen his results.

Many of Villasenor’s questions were designed to gauge students’ understanding of the First Amendment. Colleges, after all, pay a lot of lip service to “freedom of speech,” despite high-profile examples of civil-liberty-squelching on campus. The survey suggests that this might not be due to hypocrisy so much as a misunderstanding of what the First Amendment actually entails.

For example, when students were asked whether the First Amendment protects “hate speech,” 4 in 10 said no. This is, of course, incorrect.

Women are more likely than men to believe hate speech is not constitutionally protected (49 percent vs. 38 percent, respectively).

Students were asked whether the First Amendment requires that an offensive speaker at a public university be matched with one with an opposing view. Here, 6 in 10 (mistakenly) said that, yes, the First Amendment requires balance.

The most chilling findings, however, involved how students think repugnant speech should be dealt with.

Let’s say a public university hosts a “very controversial speaker,” one “known for making offensive and hurtful statements.” Would it be acceptable for a student group to disrupt the speech “by loudly and repeatedly shouting so that the audience cannot hear the speaker”?

Astonishingly, half said that snuffing out upsetting speech — rather than, presumably, rebutting or even ignoring it — would be appropriate. Democrats were more likely than Republicans to find this response acceptable (62 percent to 39 percent), and men were more likely than women (57 percent to 47 percent).

Respondents were also asked if it would be acceptable for a student group to use violence to prevent that same controversial speaker from talking. Here, 19 percent said yes.

There were no statistically significant differences in response by political party affiliation. Men, however, were three times as likely as women to endorse using physical force to silence controversial views (30 percent of men vs. 10 percent of women).

None of this bodes well for the alt-right’s Berkeley Free Speech Week events next week.

Judging from the lineup — which includes professional troll Milo Yiannopoulos and Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich — the apparent goal of this event is not to help students face hard truths or grapple with thoughtful conservative viewpoints. It’s to say disgusting things in an attempt to provoke liberals into doing something stupid, surrendering any claim to the moral high ground. If that happens, President Trump’s “both sides” comments will ring a little truer, while liberals and colleges are further cemented as whataboutist bogeymen for the right.

Colleges alone are not to blame for these findings. Other data suggest that freshmen are arriving on campus with more intolerant attitudes toward free speech than their predecessors did, and that Americans of all ages have become strikingly hostile toward basic civil and political liberties.

Colleges provide a crucible for America’s increasingly strained attitudes toward free discourse. But they are just the canaries in the coal mine.